


Hurt

by The_ship_that_wont_sink



Series: A Risk Worth Taking [4]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Self-Harm, Sort Of, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Yeah - it probably is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-27 20:35:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14433576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_ship_that_wont_sink/pseuds/The_ship_that_wont_sink
Summary: In the aftermath of 'Seen This Ship Before...', Sara and the Legends try to come to terms with everything that has happened.(Expect angst)Cannon divergent from 3x09 onwards.





	Hurt

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the first chapter of episode 4. 
> 
> The title comes courtesy of Johnny Cash (and nine inch nails) . Although there have been many songs of the same name, I feel that the lyrics, the tone, the way he sings it; everything about this song, is the embodiment of what Sara is feeling at this point. 
> 
> For anyone new to this series... don't start here! Please! Go back and start at episode 1. Or at the least episode 3. 
> 
> For everyone else, thank you for continuing to read, and for all the kudos, and the wonderful comments I have got so far :) you guys really are amazing.

_'I hurt myself today_  
_To see if I still feel_  
_I focus on the pain_  
_The only thing that's real'_

 

Chapter 1

 

_"...So, will you, Sara Lance, go out with me?"_

 

Sara hit pause, and the image of Ava - perched on the edge of her desk, looking out of the screen with wide, hopeful eyes and a touch of colour to her cheeks - froze.

She took a long drink from the glass of scotch that was sat on the small table in her study, next to her favourite chair, where she had been holed up for the past God-knows how long. The liquid left the usual burn at the back of her throat as it went down, but beyond that she felt no effect.

She'd lost track of how many times she had drained and refilled it, and yet her head remained painfully clear. Typical, she thought with a humourless smile; the one time in the past few weeks that the state of intoxication she was trying for eluded her.

Sighing, she put the glass back down on the table. The resultant thud was loud and heavy in the quiet of the ship.

The lights aboard the Waverider had been dimmed; the imitation of night-time in the temporal zone. The others were no doubt all asleep. She had heard Nate and Amaya get back from dropping Nomusa safely back to Zambezi some time ago. She had gone unnoticed as their quiet voices passed her by, before fading into the night. She was glad; she had no desire for company.

Looking up at the monitor with red-rimmed eyes, she pressed rewind, and watched as the blurry figure of the agent bobbled about on the screen, occasionally making the odd jerking movement as she gestured at something or other.

Sitting forward in her seat, she hit play.

_"...Sara, I will always come for you..."_

Ava looked up at the camera through her eyelashes, almost shyly.

Sara focused intently on the woman, trying to take in everything; every detail, every subtle nuanced expression. Every crinkle of the eyes and quirk of the lips. Imprinting them in her mind. Tattooing the words on her heart...

_"The thing is, I like you Sara... I mean, I really like you. And I know, I’ve got the worst timing in the world, and asking you out by video message is hardly the most romantic of gestures..."_

Ava paused and gave a small, shy laugh at what she believed was her own ineptitude; one of the many things about her that Sara had come to love.

_"...But I don’t care. I like you, I want to be with you, and I want you to know. And with our jobs, there’s hardly ever going to be a good time... and yes, I’m babbling, a little bit..."_

She held up her fingers to indicate the amount, looking bashful, before giving a hopeful looking smile.

_"So, will you, Sara Lance, go out with me?"_

Sara paused the recording again. A knot forming in the back of her throat, and a pressure in her chest. She swiped her glass off the table and drained the contents, before resuming the message.

_"And if I’ve somehow misread the signs, if you don’t like me like that, then just do me a favour, will you? Let me down gently?_

_"...And... just be careful out there. Look after yourself, please Sara."_

The screen faded out to black.

Ava.

So beautiful, and pure, and honest. So good. What could she have ever possibly seen in Sara? Well, whatever it was, it was gone. Dead. Sara had made sure of that.

Rewind.

_"...And if I’ve somehow misread the signs, if you don’t like me like that, then just do me a favour, will you? Let me down gently?"_

Pause.

She put her head in her hands, palms pressing into her eye sockets, as though by doing so, she might be able to rid herself of the images burnt into her brain.

Ava, nervous and awkward, looking up at her with affection. Hope shining in her eyes.

Ava's face, clouded with disbelief, pain and dawning realisation. Cold and hard as she turned away.

_"The thing is, I like you Sara. I mean, I really like you..."_

_"Clearly it’s me who's the real idiot... an idiot for thinking that there could ever be something between us..."_

_"Let me down gently?"_

Sara felt sick. There was pain, and desperation, and hate; all scratching away at the edges of the semi-numb state she had found herself in. Almost as if she were looking down on herself from a great height. Feeling the emotions, perhaps, as though they were second-hand.

It wouldn’t last, this feeling of nothingness. At least, she didn’t think it would. And she hoped that it wouldn’t. She didn’t deserve that kind of mercy.

***

After the confrontation with Ava, Sara had somehow managed to drag herself back to the sanctuary of her bedroom. She barely recalled getting up from the floor of the deserted corridor, and, beaten and bone-weary, staggering down the almost endless gangways, before finally collapsing onto her bed. She remembered vaguely hoping that Gideon would be able to clean up the trail of blood before the others could find it. And then the darkness overtook her mind, and she fell into a fitful slumber. A part of her hoping she wouldn't wake up.

***

She had dreamt; broken, fragmented dreams. Jagged images which whirled through her mind, only to be snatched away just as they came into focus.

***

When she had awoken some time later, she was tangled in her bedsheets and dripping with sweat. Her leg screaming in pain; a searing, blistering agony.

It took long minutes before she remembered what had happened. The memories leaving her gasping for air more thoroughly than any physical pain ever could.

She had lost control. She had allowed the bloodlust to take her over completely, and she had become nothing more than a savage, mindless killer. _A monster_.

Her mind had rebelled against the images that were bombarding it, all of them hazy and distorted, like a camera lens out of focus. But it hadn't been enough to disguise the horrific, sickening truth.

Blackbeard; shock and disbelief written clean over his features. The pain. And how his tanned face had turned grey as he collapsed down, landing on top of his guts and the voided contents of his own bowels. The man she had slept with mere hours before; callously murdered at her own hand.

The memory of indistinct slaughter. Blood coating her hands and face. The feel of it, hot against her skin, in her mouth. The carnal need for more. More blood and more death.

Ray, and the look in his eyes as he had been confronted with the truth of who she was.

Mick, who she had been a whisker away from tearing apart...

The pressure in her head was immense. She’d clutched at it, her nails digging into her scalp, pressing down, as though, somehow, she might remove the memories through that action alone. As though if she willed it hard enough, it might never have happened.

But even then she could still feel it, calling to her. The bloodlust. It would be so easy, to let it rise up and consume her.

 _No_.

She had tried so hard... battled against it for so long, but there was no escape. No hiding from the bitter truth. She was a monster. And now everybody knew.

Her breath had come in short, rapid gasps. She couldn’t get enough air into her lungs, and there was a band around her chest, crushing her. The edges of her vision became grey as her sight started to tunnel.

 _No_. She screamed out again into the chaos of her mind.

She wouldn’t lose consciousness. She didn’t deserve that respite.

In a rush, she had stood, pushing herself up and staggering forward.

She made it one pace, and then a second, and then the pain had exploded in her leg. She'd crumbled, crashing forward, grappling for purchase on something, anything, to stop her fall.

She’d found it against a heavy antique set of drawers, part of the remnants of Rip's furniture that she had never bothered to replace. She slammed into them; blackness pushing at the edges of her vision, trying to send her into oblivion. But she’d fought against it and clung on.

The next attempt got her as far as the bathroom door. She sagged against the frame. She’d been shaking, great tremors, which wracked her body. Her energy and strength were gone. She’d barely been able to hold herself upright.

She fumbled with the door handle; her vision too grey and patchy. Her palm too slick with sweat.

Finally it gave, and the door had swung open. And Sara had fallen through into darkness.

***

When she had woken for the second time, on the cold, hard floor of her bathroom; she had felt numb. She’d still been able to feel the physical pain, from her leg and elsewhere, but it didn’t seem to touch her. And the anguish and torment she had awoken to the first time, the turbulence, it all seemed very far away. Maybe it had been some form of self-preservation, but her mind was still. And for the first time in a long time, it was as though she was seeing clearly.

There were things she needed to do.

The highest priority of which being to tend to her injuries.

She kept a first-aid kit in her bathroom. Well, less first-aid and more what you might expect to find in the rucksack of a combat medic on a tour of duty; old habits die hard after all.

She’d managed to brace one hand on the toilet and the other against the sink, hauling herself up, just enough to pull it from the cupboard. She really needed to start keeping it some place more accessible.

She had still been wearing her pirate breaches. Tattered and torn, and stained with gore and blood. A lot of blood. Not all of it hers, but enough; her left leg was wet with it.

When she ripped open the trousers, she had been confronted with a limb that was swollen and inflamed. In the middle of her thigh was a small round hole, oozing blood. There were nasty purple and red tendrils curling out away from it, radiating heat; it appeared the infection had already begun to set in.

She had run her hands down the back of the leg, ignoring the spasms that shot through it with the disturbance.

There was no exit wound.

The bullet was lodged into the muscle, a fraction away from hitting the bone. Deep. The fact that it hadn't shattered her femur, the fact it hadn’t hit the bone at all, was something to consider later.

Luckily, her major blood vessels were intact. But she had known that anyway; if they weren’t, she would’ve been dead hours earlier.

With a hiss, she had poured half the bottle of medical grade ethanol into the wound, and ignored the urge to swallow the rest.

She’d unwrapped a pair of tapered forceps, and, taking a deep breath, eased them into the bullet hole.

The pain had been enough to penetrate the haze of her mind. She almost screamed. She’d had to swallow down the bile that rose up in her throat.

She’d sucked a deep breath in through her nose, and expelled it slowly through her mouth. Again and again, until she was the master of her pain. Just as the League had taught her.

The tips of the forceps brushed against the small metal ball, and as carefully as she could with her shaking hands, she’d closed the ends around the shot, and inched it out. Finally dropping both the forceps and bullet to the floor.

***

_“You are an idiot, Sara Lance.”_

_“Ava... What the...?”_

She had still been slumped in her bathroom, on a floor that was slick with blood. Smeared red handprints covered the toilet and cupboard... It had looked as if a murder had taken place; and Sara should know, she had committed enough of them.

Her head had felt fuzzy and her leg was throbbing... She must have passed out. Again.

And there was Ava, stood hovering over her, arms crossed and wearing an unamused frown.

_“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”_

The agent was mad. Really mad.

Sara had sighed and leant her head back, her eyes closed.

_“You’re not real. I’m dreaming, or hallucinating... And anyway, Ava hates me so...”_

Ava came and knelt down on the floor just in front of Sara, hands resting lightly in her own lap. Just far enough away that they weren’t touching.

_“I don't hate you. Mad at you... yes. But that doesn’t mean I want to see you hurt yourself either.”_

The Ava hallucination was worried. Sara could tell. There was a crinkle to her eyebrows, and her features were softer, despite retaining her trademark look of displeasure.

Sara gave a half shrug, not really having the words to say to this mirage of the woman she had fallen for. The woman she had hurt.

_“Jesus Sara! What the hell were you thinking? Performing major surgery on yourself! On the floor of your bathroom..! You could've easily hit an artery. And what then? You would’ve bled to death, right here, that’s what. Of all the idiotic, stupid, selfish things...”_

Ava was babbling. Raving. But there were tears in her eyes at the same time.

Sara had to remember, she wasn’t real, just an illusion. She repeated the mantra over and over in her head... ‘She’s not real...’

 _“It doesn’t matter anyway, not anymore.”_ She said aloud. Her voice weary.

_“What do you mean ‘it doesn’t matter’? You’re talking like you don’t care whether you live or die!!”_

She had lifted her head and looked at not-Ava again.

_“Why are you here, Ava? You made it pretty clear you don’t want anything to do with me.”_

_“So that’s it? You’re not even going to fight; for me, for us? For your life? I never took you as a coward, Sara Lance.”_

_“There isn’t anything to fight for.”_ She whispered, _“I’m sorry I hurt you, I am. But it’s for the best. I can’t risk hurting anyone else. You will get over me, Ava, and you will find someone who can make you happy, really happy. That person, it was never gonna be me...”_

Ava had tears in her eyes, and was shaking her head, as though she could deny what Sara was telling her.

Sara had closed her own eyes.

And when she’d opened them, she had been alone once more, and her face was wet with tears...

 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you guys think, all comments appreciated :)


End file.
